


Ashes in My Wake

by Twisted_Mind



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Animal Sacrifice, Blood Magic, Depression, First Kiss, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Moral Ambiguity, POV Stiles, Pre-Slash, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 17:35:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8926120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twisted_Mind/pseuds/Twisted_Mind
Summary: He expected to grieve. He expected to hurt, to miss Peter, to remember, and to move on. 
That's not what  happens.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gksmentality](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gksmentality/gifts).



> Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays gksmentality/substanceofmysoul! Sorry about the mix-up--I don't tumbl, and I accidentally gifted your thing to the wrong person. My bad. Also, we don't really know each other, but I hope you like your present. Even if it is a punch a feels. Oops x2?
> 
> Big thank you to ShipperFiend for the handholding and help on this one!

 

Losing Peter was hard. Harder than he’d expected it to be. Peter was an ally, his partner in snark, the most experienced fighter they had. Peter had felt like a permanent fixture. One they joked about getting rid of only because they were comfortable in the knowledge that they never would, _couldn’t_ even if they wanted to.

And then he died.

It wasn’t a hero’s death, where he died saving someone else. He didn’t die a villain, the victim of his own underhanded scheming. It wasn’t an accident, or a stray hunter. He was exactly where he was supposed to be, in the plan that he and Stiles had come up with, doing exactly what he was supposed to. And he died.

They hadn’t realized he was gone until after the skirmish, when he didn’t reappear and no one could feel him through the pack bonds. They went looking, and Stiles caught Derek when his knees buckled, pulling him away from his uncle’s body until Scott and Lydia arrived. Stiles handed him off then, knowing that Scott was the right person to handle the man grieving the last of his family.

Stiles himself tended to Peter’s body. His chest felt tight, his face hard and eyes dry as he stripped and washed the body. Silently, he buried the man who was his friend and mourned the man who might have been more than just a friend as he wound wolfsbane rope in a funeral spiral.

 

***

 

He expected to grieve. He expected to hurt, to miss Peter, to remember, and to move on.

He didn’t.

Instead, he watched the others do that. He watched Lydia process her ambiguous emotions about the man who had terrorized her, awakened her powers, saved her life, and helped her grow into herself. He watched Scott struggle without Peter in the role of devil’s advocate and knowledge-hoarder, and then accept Deaton’s offer to get in touch with other Druids and emissaries on the pack’s behalf. He watched Derek withdraw and go quiet, watched the hideously young man struggle with isolation before letting the pack close enough to comfort him.

He watched as the pack members with less Peter-shaped baggage moved on quickly, and how his dad and Melissa actually seemed relieved that Peter was gone. He watched as Derek started running a new circuit through the Preserve, one that took him past Peter’s burial site as well as the Hale house.

He watched everyone else move on and grow as he was left behind. Peter’s absence was like a wound that wouldn’t heal. At least twice a week he’d turn to mutter something sarcastic, forgetting that he wouldn’t get a smarmy reply whispered in his ear. He’d lie in bed at night trying to sleep, and snippets of conversations they’d had would play through his mind. The memory of Peter’s laughter—unexpectedly bright and happy the one time he’d shocked it out of Peter accidentally—helped. Eased the ache enough to let him sleep, usually.

He didn’t talk about it with the others. Not when they were grieving—or not, as the case may be—on their own. And it wasn’t like he could take it to a professional, because how was he supposed to explain the circumstances of Peter’s death—never mind the man’s _life_ —to someone who didn’t know about the supernatural?

In the end, he wound up talking to his mom. It hurt too much to think about sitting beside Peter’s grave this way, the loss too fresh, but he’d always talked to his mom. Even before she’d died, he used to tell her everything. So now he told her this, too, knowing that she wasn’t judging him, wherever she was, because she always used to say that you can’t help who you love.

It was terrible, but he’d be okay. He’d get through it. They always said the first year was the hardest, didn’t they?

 

***

 

It didn’t get better after the first year. Or the second. By the time the third anniversary of Peter’s death started to creep closer, Stiles knew he was in trouble. It wasn’t healthy to be so obsessed with a dead man. Wasn’t right that he couldn’t let go, that the hurt was still so fresh it continued to pull the life right out of him.

He wondered if he was being haunted. Or had been cursed. Was being psychically attacked. _Something_ to explain why he couldn’t let Peter go, why it felt like he’d lost a piece of himself to the grave. As much as he’d rather not, he went to Deaton. Told the man that he felt . . . off. _Wrong_ , somehow. Deaton stared at him a long time before handing him a small vial, telling him to drink it and come back in 24 hours.

He did as instructed, but didn’t get any answers. According to Deaton, there was no magical influence or malicious intent directed at him. He just “needed time”.

He went home and sat on his bed, hollow-eyed and wondering. Maybe it wasn’t time he needed. Maybe it was something else. Because if time really was the cure, here, he’d had nearly three years’ worth to start feeling better. And yet, here he was, replaying dimming memories every night and holding one-sided conversations with Peter in his head, going through the motions and putting on a smile for everyone else when all he really felt anymore was tired.

So, yeah. No. It was time to try something other than time.

 

***

 

He tried antidepressants and journaling for the fourth year. That didn’t help either, and clued-in the pack that something was wrong. They’d gotten used to the medicinal bite in his scent, but having it sharpen so abruptly made them worry. He told them about the antidepressants, and that he didn’t want to talk about it.

Mostly, they left him alone. Stiles suspected Derek had a hand in that, for which he was grateful. Scott, as ever, was the exception, badgering him relentlessly—right up until Stiles broke down and cried all over his best friend’s shoulder. After that, Scott offered a lot of hugs, but kept his mouth shut.

 

***

 

On the fifth anniversary of Peter’s death, Stiles went out to the burial site. There was no headstone, but he didn’t need one to remember exactly where he’d laid his friend to rest.

He sat down next to the flourishing wolfbane flower, closed his eyes, and pressed his palms to the earth. He sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. “I think I’m going to do something really, really stupid,” he whispered, voice thick with the tears he’d promised he wouldn’t shed.

“And what might that be?”

His head whipped up, because he _knew_ that voice. “Peter?”

“Hmm. Took you long enough to come back here.”

It was just so _Peter_ that he wrapped his arms around his knees and bawled like a baby. He’d never hallucinated Peter’s voice before, but auditory hallucinations were the most common kind, and nobody who saw him right now would doubt that this was a psychotic break. It would fit, that his brain would punish him like this for coming to visit Peter’s grave after avoiding it so long.

When he was finally spent, he heard Peter’s voice again. “You’ll be alright, sweetheart. Now, I need you to listen to me. Can you do that, Stiles?”

There was no other answer but, “Yes.”

“Good boy. Do you have a mentor? Has someone been training you in how to use your Spark?”

He swallowed painfully, the words he didn’t want to speak sticking in his throat. “No. It—it’s not stable enough to, Deaton said. I checked around myself, trying to see if anyone else would, but . . .”

“Breathe. Now, what do you mean, it’s not stable?”

He heaved in air and let it out slowly. “It . . . sputters. Most of the time, I can’t do anything with it. I can’t reach it. And, even when I can, how much power I can tap changes. It’s unpredictable during practise, never mind in a fight.”

Peter’s voice was heavy when he spoke again. “I thought this might happen.”

Stiles gave a laugh that sounded a little manic, even to him. “That what might happen? You’d die and I’d wind up useless and ordinary?”

“You have never been either of those in your life,” Peter snapped. He paused, and his tone gentled. “You weren’t aware of it, but I’d been acting as an anchor for your Spark. Not formally, nothing binding, but—”

“—but you kept me stable enough to work with volatile magic,” he murmured. He felt numb. “That makes sense.” He didn’t want to think about the implications of that, so he very carefully thought about nothing at all.

Peter gave a heavy sigh before launching into all the things Stiles wasn’t thinking about. “Normally, you would have found another anchor and continued to learn. But you’ve always been loyal to a fault, so you’ve been tugging at me instead.”

He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to disturb you.”

“Believe me, I’m not complaining. My concern here is you. You wouldn’t be causing me all manner of restlessness if you were fine.”

He had no idea what to say to that. His emotions were a jumble. “I don’t know what to do.”

Peter sounded warm, even fond, as he whispered, “For now? Go home and sleep. When you get up, do what you do best: find the solution no one else can see.”

 

***

 

Stiles spends four straight days researching everything he can beg, borrow, bribe, or steal about Sparks and their anchors. One of those days is dedicated to Sparks who lost their anchors. None of what he learns is pretty. But all of it adds up, and it brings him to conclusions he doesn’t like.

Conclusion #1: Deaton knows that he’s lost his anchor. The Druid was the one to identify Stiles as a Spark and direct him to resources. He had to have known that Stiles had an anchor, or he wouldn’t have been able to move beyond manipulating mountain ash.

So Deaton knows. And he left Stiles to flounder, clueless and alone, in the aftermath of losing his anchor. Stiles decides that Deaton has some sins to answer for, but sets that aside for now. There’ll be time for that later.

Conclusion #2: Peter is and always will be his anchor. If he’d known about that, about what Peter had been doing for him, there’s a chance he could have severed their connection and tried to form a new one after Peter’s death. But their bond had grown organically, and it would have taken a deliberate act to uproot it and seek out a new one.

Conclusion #3: It’s too late for that now. Stiles has been seeking Peter out, strongly enough that he disturbed the peace of the dead. Even if he were capable of Spark-bonding with someone else—which he isn’t, not with the way his Spark keeps guttering like a candle in a windstorm—he can’t break Peter’s side of the bond. And with the state they’re both in now, there’s a very real chance that trying would force Peter to haunt him for the rest of his life.

Conclusion #4: He needs Peter. Not just if he ever wants to use his Spark again, but because the broken bond will continue to torment him until any number of terrible things happen, and how about no thank you. Not when it’s preventable.

Now he just needs to figure out how.

 

***

 

Stiles had known that necromancy was considered Dark Arts, but what he hadn’t known was how fucking _complicated_ raising the dead is.

Seriously.

He can’t use the ritual that Peter did to come back, because he’s missing key components and he’s not willing to violate other peoples’ consent. (He’s morally flexible, he’ll admit this freely, but the morals are still _there_.) He could, in theory, rejoin Peter to the body that was his, but after five years, it’s in pretty rough shape and Stiles isn’t sure he has the power to restore it. And he’s not real keen on forcing Peter into zombiehood—for the sake of his own nightmares, to say nothing of the revenge Peter would take on him for it.

And never mind the fact that magic is just like anything else: you can’t get something for nothing. No such thing as a free lunch.

So the question is: what price is he willing to pay to get Peter back?

 

***

 

The answer to that turns out to be his bridges with Deaton and any possible career working with animals, but he’s okay with that. He does, however, feel a little bit bad about the wolf cub. He tried to be merciful when picking it out—snagging the runt of the litter, the weakest and least likely to survive, especially given how the mother had been iffy on it herself—but he’s still going to be raising it and then sacrificing it.

Suffice to say that he doesn’t feel great about himself.

Still, though. The life of an animal that wouldn’t have survived without human intervention in exchange for a man? Moreover, the anchor to his Spark, a member of Derek’s family, and the pack’s counterbalance? It’s more than an even trade.

He still isn’t happy about it, especially when No Name is nomming on his fingers or he’s considering whether or not to tell Derek about this before he tries it, but his reasons are solid. Solid enough to squash his doubts every time they pop up.

 

***

 

He refuses to desecrate Peter’s grave any more than strictly necessary, so he doesn’t disturb the earth. He does, however, rip up the wolfsbane (it’s supposed to ensure a peaceful afterlife for werewolves, and not only did it fail to do that, but it would actively hinder the ritual _and_ cause Peter unnecessary hardship if this works, so).

Then he crouches down next to No Name, who at two years old is just barely an adult, and a beautiful one at that—all soft greys and white, with bright amber eyes. He frames No Name’s face and leans their foreheads together. “Sorry, buddy.”

He chants softly, putting the wolf to sleep and summoning Peter’s shade before he slits the animal’s throat. He’d have preferred a snapped neck—quick and painless—but necromancy requires blood. He closes his eyes as he finishes the spell, not wanting to see the gore on his hands.

After, he keeps them closed. He’s not sure he wants to know if it worked or not. If it didn’t, he’s not sure he’ll survive. And if it did . . . everything changes.

A quiet whine breaks him from limbo. He looks up and sees that the wolf is struggling to stand. His first panicked thought is that poor No Name didn’t die, that he didn’t cut deep enough, _can’t even perform a mercy killing properly_ , but its eyes are blue. An uncanny blue that doesn’t belong on an animal’s face. “Peter?” he rasps.

The wolf noses at his cheek, nuzzling, giving a quiet rumble. That does it. He clutches Peter tightly, ignoring the blood staining his clothes to bury his face in the soft fur and sob. He doesn’t let go, even as he hears bones grinding, feels muscles shift and fur recede. If anything, it makes him grip harder.

It’s Peter who pulls back, framing his face and thumbing away his tears with surprising gentleness. The signature smirk shapes his mouth, but his eyes are soft. “Blood-spattered and clinging to me is a good look for you, darling. I’d prefer fewer clothes, but there’s still time.”

Stiles chokes on a laugh. “God, I missed you.”

Peter’s hands drop from his face to rest on the back of his neck and at his hip. “Come here.”

He goes willingly, letting Peter pull him closer until he’s straddling Peter’s lap, his face tucked into the curve of Peter’s neck. He breathes deep, trying to calm down. The sense of wholeness he feels wrapped in Peter’s arms makes it easy. Easier than it should be, maybe.

It makes him reluctant to speak, but he knows he has to. “It isn’t permanent.”

The hand rubbing circles at the small of his back doesn’t stop. “So how long do we have?”

He squeezes Peter before letting go and leaning back to make eye contact. “However long the wolf would’ve had. Which isn’t precise, because they only live six or eight years in the wild, but can survive as long as seventeen in captivity and—”

“Long enough then.”

“What?” He doesn’t understand. That’s nowhere near long enough with Peter. Unless Peter doesn’t actually want to stay, wants to—

“A decade is more than enough time for you to learn and grow strong enough to restore my body.”

“Oh,” he breathes. “I didn’t . . .”

Peter’s stare is intense, his eyes flaring. “This bond was never one-sided, Stiles.”

Heat blooms in his chest, crawling up his face and travelling down his limbs. “So where do we go from here?”

“Wherever you want,” Peter says, and while his voice is even, his expression is hungry.

It gives Stiles the courage to press their lips together. It’s brief, a request rather than a demand. “Yeah?” he whispers, needing the words.

“ _Yes_.”

And then Peter’s pulling him into a second kiss, one that doesn’t leave any room for doubt. Peter isn’t settling, or placating the young Spark. Isn’t making the best of a situation, or playing the long game. Definitely isn’t teasing.

He’s saying that, werewolves and Sparks and anchors aside, Stiles is his.

 


End file.
